Rep. Curt Clawson (R-Fla.) delivered the tea party response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday, focusing on personal liberty and teamwork — along with a lengthy story about his college basketball career.
“President Obama just presented his proposals for America — pretty much the same rhetoric we’ve heard for the past six years. I’m not here to pick apart his ideas one by one — but to offer a very different vision for our nation,” Clawson said, according to prepared remarks.
Clawson stressed that individuals were key to achieving the American dream, not government.
“Our vision is not based on wealth redistribution, but on economic liberty, private enterprise and wealth creation that benefits everyone … We want opportunity for all but favoritism for none!” he said in the response, which was hosted on the Tea Party Express website.
The Florida congressman also told a lengthy story about how putting aside players’ individual differences led to success when he was on Purdue University’s basketball team.
“At Purdue, our biggest challenge was not the other team. It was in our own locker room,” he said. “To win — we had to learn to work together.”
“Now of course, the enormous challenges facing our country are far more complex than bringing a diverse basketball team together,” Clawson continued. “But I say teamwork is essential in all walks of life. And I also say that liberty is the great equalizer.”
Clawson, who has an MBA from Harvard Business School, also discussed the economy, pushing to cut small business and corporate tax rates by half, to achieve economic growth of 5 percent each year and to reverse the effects of the Affordable Care Act.
“We also need to lift the economic shackles of Obamacare … We’ve got to replace Obamacare with a fair, patient-focused, market-based system. And no one should lose their health care,” he said.
On the issue of immigration, Clawson emphasized the need to help those trying to enter the country through legal means and to protect jobs for those who are already American citizens.
Clawson spoke briefly “to those who speak Spanish,” then repeated the message in English: “We all believe in God, the family, hard work, and liberty. The law must be followed. You are all welcome with us. We are all equal. Of course. Our house is your house.”
He concluded with comments about “the global terrorist threat of radical Islam,” which he said America and other nations must work together to address.
“America must lead this coalition — but we must end the disproportionate sacrifice of American blood and treasure. Our allies must step up and contribute more in this fight,” he said. “And we’ve got to stop getting into bad wars. Too much dying!”
Clawson won a June 2014 special election to fill the seat previously held by former Rep. Trey Radel (R), and was re-elected in November.
live blog Oldest Newest Share + Today 10:54 PM ESTObama Omits College Sexual Assault From State Of The Union Address HuffPost’s Tyler Kingkade reports:
President Barack Obama didn’t mention college sexual assault during his State of the Union address Tuesday, an issue his administration has highlighted.
In an address that largely focused on economic issues, Obama chose to discuss higher education issues like the cost of a college degree, his free community college plan and simplifying the process of applying for federal financial aid.
The president skipped the chance to address college sexual violence as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) brought as her guest Columbia University senior Emma Sulkowicz, who has been outspoken in criticizing her school after she reported being raped.
Read more here.
On HuffPost Live, Howard Fineman and Zach Carter discuss President Barack Obama’s best joke from the State of the Union address.
HuffPost’s Sara Bondioli reports:
Rep. Curt Clawson (R-Fla.) delivered the tea party response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday, focusing on personal liberty and teamwork — along with a lengthy story about his college basketball career.
“President Obama just presented his proposals for America — pretty much the same rhetoric we’ve heard for the past six years. I’m not here to pick apart his ideas one by one — but to offer a very different vision for our nation,” Clawson said, according to prepared remarks.
Read the full story here.
Pfeiffer explained the White House’s thinking about releasing Obama’s remarks as prepared for delivery on Medium and rolling out Obama’s SOTU ideas weeks before the big speech.
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“The Republicans continue to send messages to their most conservative wing,” Hoyer told HuffPost Live. “If that’s all they’re going to do, we’re not going to go forward very quickly or very successfully.”
Read more here.
HuffPost’s Mike McAuliff reports:
President Barack Obama may have a strong message for the middle class and voters in his State of the Union address, but it won’t matter unless he and Congress first do something about the cash-flooded election system, Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) argued Tuesday.
[…]
Five years after the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark Citizens United case that billionaires could spend as much money as they want on campaigns, Sarbanes wants to create a public finance system in which people get a small tax credit for political donations, which would then be matched six times over with public money.
“That means a donor is now worth 0 to the candidate,” Sarbanes said, arguing that a politician would then have incentives to visit people in living rooms, rather than catering to super PACs and billionaires. “It’s worth my going there instead of going to K Street or getting on the phone with a bunch of high-dollar donors.”
Read the full story here.
Last year's SOTU scored 33,299,172 viewers. (Nielsen only counts folks watching at home on TVs; no web streams.) This year: higher or lower?
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 21, 2015
RBG in the House. pic.twitter.com/gMhqO3e8L6
— Meredith Shiner (@meredithshiner) January 21, 2015
#SOTU is an important tradition in our shared political history, regardless of party. I’m watching tonight. Are you? http://t.co/Ehs0oBecis
— Madeleine Albright (@madeleine) January 21, 2015
President Barack Obama will be donning his now-infamous tan suit this evening, according to senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer.
The President's suiting up for the big speech. Tune into http://t.co/tmsUd5yh5y at 9pm ET #YesWeTan pic.twitter.com/FC8sKb8hda
— Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) January 21, 2015
Back in August, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) went on a fairly extensive rant about the president’s attire. The interview was flagged by BuzzFeed:
“There’s no way any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday,” King said of President Obama on NewsMaxTV. “When you have the world watching… a week, two weeks of anticipation of what the United States is gonna do. For him to walk out — I’m not trying to be trivial here — in a light suit, light tan suit, saying that first he wants to talk about what most Americans care about the revision of second quarter numbers on the economy. This is a week after Jim Foley was beheaded and he’s trying to act like real Americans care about the economy, not about ISIS and not about terrorism. And then he goes on to say he has no strategy.”
Middle-class economics and ISIS, the issues King highlighted, are on the agenda for tonight’s the State of the Union address. Will Rep. King give us another glorious rant about the president’s fashion sense this evening?
UPDATE: Pfeiffer was trolling us. Obama is wearing a black suit.
— Julia Craven
HuffPost’s Sabrina Siddiqui sat down with Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) ahead of President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address.
Watch the interview below:
